


Circle Voices

by sorb_aucup



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Blood Magic (Dragon Age), Bromance, Crossover, Mage Rebellion (Dragon Age), Multi, Pre-Dragon Age II - Act 3, Student AU, Theodicy, Tranquil Mages, and cullen and bethany, honorable mentions of a bunch of other hetalia characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26842864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorb_aucup/pseuds/sorb_aucup
Summary: Within the walls of the Kirkwall Circle of Magi, from which a mage cannot escape and into which the outside world has no insight, knowledge is passed on and the curse of magic is banished and its blessings preserved. Gilbert has learned why, and is silent about it, and Roderich is still awaiting the final test each circle student has to pass. Ivan and Alfred are up to things they cannot talk about when awake. Roderich argues with Gilbert all day long and notices that he is running out of time. Dragon Age / magic students AU. AmeRus is intense, PruAus bromance.
Relationships: America & England (Hetalia), America & Russia (Hetalia), America/Russia (Hetalia), Austria & Hungary (Hetalia), Austria & Prussia (Hetalia), Austria/Prussia (Hetalia), one-sided Austria/Hungary
Kudos: 2





	Circle Voices

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Stimmen im Zirkel](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/696640) by sorb_aucup. 



"I do not know who my father is. Rumour has it he's a chevalier from Orlais... That'd be all right. Those guys ARE a little obnoxious I guess though." The tinny, obnoxious voice drowned out all the others and made even the students sitting at the other ends of the table listen in unintentionally.  
A second, velvety voice laughed with affectation and said condescendingly: "You have no Orlaisian blood in you. Besides, how does the son of an Orlaisian nobleman get here of all places? Usually, a lowborn or prostitute mother explains that gap in logic. Weird story, not enough detail, Gilbert."  
As spiteful as it might sound, Gilbert knew how the speaker meant the things he said, and only made an obscene gesture towards Francis. "So how did y o u get here, hmm?" he growled, grinning.  
"Oh, I", Francis stretched the vowel out to its very limits "was a guest in this dump of a city, with my noble and rich family, when I noticed that I could light those candles without any fire at all..."

Katya and Natalya, both within earshot, sneered at that, while some other students raised their heads with interest.

For most of the mages who had been taken away from their families as children, the outside world was far away, distant, almost alien and exciting like any far away country at the ends of Thedas. They knew stories; perhaps even had memories of their own; visits from relatives were granted from time to time, and very few had dared to flee and visit their families, which usually ended with a relatively light punishmen. They were usually caught too quickly to get far. And even those who left, accompanied of course, and came back, the various quarters, the nobles, the workers at the port, the city guards, the city itself, bands of robbers, slave traders, the Qunari, the dwarves, the buccaneers on the seas were distant memories or even just empty cues; many a one nodded and remembered books they had read rather than real life impressions. Class consciousness and racial conceit were also stronger outside than here behind the thick castle walls; and the outside world only entered the circle in the form of stories, rumours and books. Accordingly, inquisitive eyes turned to the Orlaisian.

Those who had not discovered their talents for long enough or had been hidden by their families and therefore knew a little more, snorted, and Arthur said bitingly: "Sure. Just as I was found by Dalish elves and initiated into the secret magic of prehistoric times when I was ten."

"Oh, I wouldn't put it past you, strange as you are, Arthur..."

"Yeah, Arthur, you probably were!"

The following squabbling, which consisted of hissing and kicking under the table robbed Gilbert of the attention that had been paid to him until right now. He sulked a little and finally threw his spoon at Francis. The wooden cutlery rattled when it hit Francis' glass and the container of liquid toppled over. Five glances immediately rushed to Ser Cannee. Today Ser Canee was posted in the dining room, and Ser Canee came right after Ser Alrik. That was to say, if the room under Ser Alrik was dead quiet and full of poisonous glances, Ser Canee's room was filled with civilized murmuring, but the knowledge that for the slightest application of magic you wouldn't even see candlelight, let alone daylight, for twenty-four hours was enough to shut even Gilbert up from time to time. This happened, unless some of the nicer Templar colleagues noticed and shortened the time, of course. .

The Templar had just been distracted by a tall man in armour who had approached him and spoken softly to him. Cullen, the new commander of the Kirkwall branch of the Order of the Temple. Important enough to demand the attention of the other Templar.

A few at the table breathed out, audibly relieved.

"Gilbert, why! What's the matter, can't you throw a spoon straight?" Francis's knife slid straight towards Gilbert, who caught it hastily, firstly to avoid being hit and secondly to avoid rattling again.

"Sure I can aim! I can do almost anything, unlike you..."

"That doesn't suit you," said Lukas. His eyes, big and shining like the eyes of elves just did, looked indifferently into his plate as if nothing concerned him.

"What?"

Lukas shrugged his shoulders. "A Chevalier. It's not like you."

Gilbert blinked irritated, confused, then beamed. "You think?"

"I think so, too." Natalya's monotone voice interrupted her. She pointed at Gilbert. "Find something that suits him. An elite Orlaisian warrior. Don't make me laugh. More like a really annoying brand of dock person?"

Felicks, who hadn't been interested until now either, turned his head in Gilbert's direction. "Maybe his father was a Rivainian pirate..."

"Sure," Arthur said dryly. "I wonder what happened to that Rivaini's skin colour."

"It got scared on the way."  
"Scared?"  
"Of Gilbert's scowl."  
Antonio, the only one in the circle who actually knew that his ancestors had probably once come from Rivain to Kirkwall with a slave caravan and the only one at the table who knew for sure how he had come about to be - "My parents are fishermen and live on the harbour, I can see the dock they work at when the sky is clear" - grinned and waved at Gilbert.

"All that because we can burn a candle in our dreams," someone said bitterly.  
Arthur threw Ivan a questioning glance.  
Gilbert shrugged his shoulders. "So what? Would you rather be a Templar and watch us all day long?"  
"'Watching' is not the term I'd use," Francis piped up again.  
"I'd like to be outside," Felicks said innocently.  
"Oh, shh! How old ARE you, you child!"  
"Come on, the Templars are clad in their ugly armour and are standing at attention around the castle all day. Surely it's not a pleasant job if you could walk around outside instead. Aren't there Templars who protect caravans and stuff?"  
"Well, I find the armour very..."  
"Nobody cares, frogface!"  
"You do not know what I wanted to say!"  
"I do and assure you that no one wants to hear any of it."  
"So many people WANT this calling. It can't be all that bad here."  
Their conversation drowned in the chatter of the dining room, and that was Roderich's good fortune. He quietly said, "The Lords Templars may be noble or they may be able to leave their past behind... but they can afford to commit way more sins than most people out there."  
"Now be quiet..." Katyusha raised her arm to pat him on the shoulder, concern on her face.  
Roderich raised his eyebrows. "I wonder if it is really necessary to allow people like Alrik to tranquil mages with joy, to banish something like Tevinter from the realm of the Chantry. Tevinter is like a demon that threatens to appear if we ever stray from what our teachers tell us. Do not be like Tevinter; do not even think of anything like it ... But that Tevinter has been long gone."  
Gilbert was the first to speak again. "Tevinter still exists. And neither our situation nor that unhinged mage empire have anything to do with each other. Our lives are about duty. Tevinter is out there, and a hellish place, where mages know othing of limits and of what they should do for the world. Only what the world should do for them. Tevinter bled people dry right in this castle. You know the accounts, Roderich."  
And Roderich answered, because he simply had to. "Tevinter is an example that no one wants to follow."  
"Exactly my point."  
"And it is long gone, as I pointed out. We don't dare do anything, change anything, if it so much as smells like Tevinter magic."  
"What are you trying to say? You want to change something about the Circle system?"  
"Actually, I just wanted to say that firstly, I think it's a pity to let knowledge get lost. There are scholars who worked on both essences and spirits and they trained blood mages, among other things. Why do we reject all their knowledge? As if one drop of blood magic thinking could have contamined everything? We don't treat the Holy Marches dissenter historians that way. We judge their conclusions, but respect their accounts. And secondly, I wanted to say that a Templar who is a bastard from the start becomes even more disgusting than he should be because of the lyrium he has to swallow and that is an obvious thing we never even talk about..."  
The grip on Roderich's shoulder turned painful.  
He had said too much. Roderich had spoken calmly and in a rather emotionless way, but Maker, he had broken at least three taboos with these two sentences.  
He saw it the moment Katyusha's lower jaw dropped down in horror, and even Arthur, who was hard-boiled enough to insist that Dalish magic was fascinating and not primitive or even blasphemous, choked on the rest of his stew and coughed up in disgust.  
"Ah!" Felick's thin arm shot forward and his hand pressed itself onto Roderich's mouth. "You naughty thing!" The exaggerated theatricality in his voice shook warningly.  
"Say nothing against Alrik! Not as long as Cannee is here!" Natalya hissed worriedly.  
They were silent again; some breathed hard. Roderich noticed that he did, too.  
"The lyrium techniques... and tranquility... are the responsibility of the Tenplars. Both has its purpose and should really not be doubted...", Arthur finally said, sounding choked.  
Gilbert leaned over the table, towards Roderich. His eyes sparkled in glare, and his voice sank an octave lower in disbelief. "Are you saying you question the Transfigurations?" This chain of words alone was so monstrous that an embarrassed silence fell upon everyone.  
The Transfigurations, the ancient history of the continent, and the time of the prophetess Andraste, was what had created their world as it was today. And the texts of those days were among the most respected and sacred texts of the continent.

Everyone except Ivan, who slowly raised his eyes and his eyebrows.  
"Maker beware, no!" Roderich raised his hands defensively. "No. But" Very well. To avoid that someone misunderstand him in the worst way, he'd better say what he thought... He leaned forward unconsciously, and his eyes narrowed a little as he stared back at Gilbert. "I want to know what it was like then. Nowhere in Thedas people deemed it necessary to end a cruel magical reign. Only in Tevinter."  
"Tevinter made up half the continent then," Gilbert interrupted him harshly. "Tevinter IS the story of Thedas, before the oppressed countries could free themselves!"  
"Exactly my point. Tevinter was everywhere only in rule, not in mentality. Tevinter preserved mage power and supremacy until today. No one else did. Why do you think the Free Marches, or Orlais, or Ferelden, would risk becoming a new Tevinter if we would allow, say, mages to enter the circle later? Or leave it once their harrowing is over?"  
Katyusha started twitching and averting her eyes. Natalya also looked uncomfortable. Arthur and Luke listened intently.  
"Wait, doesn't that undo your argument that Tevinter the slave empire is long gone? Do you think the basic principles of magic and the world went down with it? Do you think Andraste took the dangers of magic with her when she went to see the Maker?"  
"What are YOU trying to say?"  
"The surface of the world has changed. The dangers of magic and our responsibility hasn't."  
"But it has!" Roderich grew impatient, and increasingly frustrated. "We do not wish to rule the world! None of us here does!" Some of their peers sniggered at that. Roderich remembered lowering his voice. "Do you think, if we were allowed to go out into the world and work for it's good there, we would flock together and try to enslave everyone?"  
Gilbert hesitated, and glared. His eyes shone almost red in the dim dining hall lights. "Yes I do. Tevinter is gone? No. It was beaten, not erased. And the memories of what magic and power together have done to the world are right here. The statues in the courtyard date from the time of Tevinter. Do those guys look like they were having fun?"

The stooped figures with the tortured, crying faces in the courtyard of the castle were certainly the reason why some of the youngest students preferred to stay in the building and have skin like porcelain rather than expose themselves to some healthy sunlight and look at the larger-than-life statues outside every day.

"Will you let me finish? I'm not saying I adore Tevinter, by the Maker! I am not deying it was bad and I am not denying it exists today!" Roderich's thoughts raced back and forth between the need to defend himself and to come up with a plausible explanation that was not too aggressive against the Templars. "What I meant originally was that as good as our training is, we learn too little about what else there is in the world apart from the magic we know; what problems we could solve aside the ones the First Enchanter takes from the Templar Commander; and I mean the things beyond the veil and I mean the centuries before us."  
"Listen, Serah." The nickname specially reserved for Roderich had never been hissed so aggressively before. "'Knowledge lost' for the flaming asses of all arch demons! If you're implying that you have a thing for maleficare, you'd best go over to Ser Cannee over there and let him tranquil you."  
That wasn't harsh, that was brutal.  
Roderich faltered.  
Not even for the words that were outrageously hurtful.  
He had never heard Gilbert speak with so much - hatred? - rage? - violence? - loathing -? before.  
Arthur raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Gilbert, to say that is really..."  
Something behind the white-haired man's eyes hardened, "I'm absolutely serious. Really, Roderich, go down there and say you want to be tranquiled..."  
"Down there?" Roderich asked, surprised, and Felicks gasped. "Seriously, Gilbert, apologize to him right now!"  
Gilbert bit his tongue and slowly lowered his eyes after Felicks had barked at him. He gave no answer.  
There was silence. Then Natalya said: "Gilbert. I have completed my harrowing. You too, haven't you?"  
He looked over at her suspiciously. "Yes, and?" he hissed between clenched teeth.  
"You know very well what and. Behave like a grown-up."  
"Roderich hasn't passed it yet, has he?"  
Roderich had the impression that there was a significant pause between sentences. One in which something resonated that only Natalya and Gilbert seemed to understand.  
And Ivan, who looked at them silently and with an indefinable look.  
"What, Gilbert has passed his harrowing and doesn't tell everyone up to the basement rats how great he did it?" Mathias was walking past them, laughing as he spoke. "Don't fuck with us!"  
The meal over. The first students got up.  
They hadn't even noticed.  
But the departure to the main hall and ;athias, who was staying at their table, hands on his hips, both had only loosened up the tense situation to a limited extent.  
"Then... we'd better get to class."  
The Fereldan opened his eyes in surprise when nobody answered him.  
One after the other, the students around the table left, faces red.  
Gilbert marched away; Natalya and Katyusha exchanged glances, Arthur and Francis had already found something that might have justified their trying to push each other out of the way, and Roderich slowly stood up. With a leaden feeling like someone had dumped his body into tar, he followed the others. Luke walked his way out of the room as if the world around him was an uninteresting fly that did nothing but buzz past his nose every now and then.  
Only Ivan, who had been preoccupied with himself all this time, missed the moment to get up, and received a strict wave from Ser Canee.  
The afternoon classes began.

***

Roderich pulled his robe tightly around him.  
Up here under the roofs it was always warmest; yet he was cold.  
He was alone, and grateful for it. On his knees lay the book that Chief Enchanter Brenn had recommended to them. Roderich blinked tiredly and read the same passage, probably for the third time.  
"Even without Lyrium, the ruthless can use their own life energy in magic, but every now and then, especially ambitious students overdo it..."  
Roderich could not be more indifferent to the essay, no matter how deeply he got into the basics of magic.  
His thoughts circled inexorably around two points.  
The subject of lyrium was only dealt with more intensively once they had passed their final exam. And that was exactly what Roderich had yet to face.  
The tranquils. And the anger with which Gilbert had hissed at him.  
Roderich closed his eyes and laid his forehead on his knees.  
No one knew when their harrowing would take place; and the students who had passed it were obliged to keep silent about the contents of the examination.  
After the examination was finished, they were given time to think it over and the offer to be voluntarily tranquiled. Afterwards one was a full member of the circle. Either tranquil, or conscious.  
If you failed, they said, they would tranquil you too.  
Roderich huffed angrily. He did not understand why one should not be allowed to repeat the exam.  
And voluntarily? How, he wondered, could one voluntarily let one's soul be taken away?  
Because I am a mage?  
The rebellious voice inside him laughed bitingly. Roderich himself was too tired and just sank a little more into himself.  
Not to hear for too long from the enchanters who called for a final test was a bad sign. Here too, some stubbornly claimed that this automatically led to being tranquiled or even executed by the Templars.  
No one had details on how this was supposed to happen, though.  
The uncertainty and the many rumours would drive him mad soon.  
And no matter how much Roderich listened away purely on principle when rumours and wild stories about their trials were circulating; the thought that so many others of his age had passed their harrowing and he had not yet done so, made him nervous.  
He had expected to be presented with a really hard exam, probably about every single subject of their teachers. So he had been studying diligently and listening attentively all year until now, and had also improved his practical skills. He had a talent for using lyrium and his mana in a controlled way, and he practiced it. He had chosen spirit magic and, when they were informed that they would be in demand in case of war, he had signed up for Tactics of Reinforcement and for Basics of Elemental Magic without hesitation.  
He would never forget the image of the lightning bolt that had once saved his life.  
Roderich felt ready, and he knew that he was more intelligent and quicker on the uptake than many others. But nothing came of it.  
Gilbert came back to his mind again. Gilbert was less good than Roderich in almost all subjects. Apart from his enthusiasm for man-to-man combat, perhaps. The only subject they did not sit in and which they were taught in the courtyard: fighting with magic, under the watchful eyes of the Templars and the Chief Enchanters. Gilbert was one of the few who did not wield his long staff with the thoroughly trained elegance and concentration of a mage, but rather swung it around and even struck with it like a warrior. Which almost always brought him a correction.  
Lysette, a templar, had encouraged him, though. And he had long since had his harrowing, as Roderich knew since lunch!  
Just like Natalya had passed.

Why not me?

Perhaps the inner attitude was also important to the circle. As much as Roderich normally held back, sometimes he could no longer control his bite on the stone cage in which they lived.

Maybe that's why. I hope so. I just have to keep learning, he said to himself. I should worry less, really, that won't help me anyway. They have to test me sometime!

The book page stared back.  
Roderich sighed and ruffled his hair. It needed cutting.  
Maybe the wind from the sea was so humid today... or he was just sick... or tired.  
He closed the treatise on the wise use of mana and lyrium in combat magic.

"Do you need anything?"  
Roderich was already smiling when he only saw the hem of the skirt appear at the edge of his field of vision. He stood up immediately. "Good day, Elizaveta."  
She watched him. "Are you tired? Or haven't you found what you're looking for?"  
"I am sad, Elizaveta." Roderick surprised himself there.  
Was he sad?  
She kept looking at him. She did not understand, but did her best to assess him and help him, he knew that, and smiled a little.  
"But you cheered me up again, Elizaveta."  
"That's nice. So I can't help you?"  
"No, you can't. You can talk to me, if you like."  
In her eyes lay intelligence, and knowledge, and attention. And no drive. No soul. "I must have some time left." And yet he imagined that she was unusually friendly; sometimes even smiling.  
Roderich nodded and put his book aside. He wished he knew what she had been like years ago. And to be able to ask her what she thought was better - now or then. "Elizaveta, do you ever think about your family?"  
Her eyelashes went down and up when she blinked. "Very rarely."  
Roderich nodded understandingly. "Do you know anything about them?"  
"Oh, yes. My parents are from Hightown."  
"Can you tell me more?" It always relaxed him to talk to her. Even if he was well advised not to confide in her completely... As kindly as she gave him information, she would give it to anyone who ele asked her, for example "Is there a mage in the circle we need to worry about?  
Elizaveta thought. "What do you want to know?"  
"What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of your family?"  
"We lived right next to the red light district. That was no advantage. It didn't do the family's reputation any good, and later the dog lords came with their heavy fighting dogs, until all the nobles of the upper town bought guards for the whole quarter and had them killed."  
"That's interesting," he encouraged them, even though he faltered at the fighting dogs and the killed Fereldian gangs. "So that's where your good language and your good education come from."  
She nodded.  
"Were you not yet in the circle when the Blight broke out in Ferelden?"  
She leaned against a shelf and folded her hands. Elizavet must be expecting a longer conversation. "I was visiting my family."  
"Oh... in secret?"  
"Yes. I was forbidden then."  
The guessing game of who knew what about his background and how much had become their obsession in the last two days. A little idea, some conversation, and then it would be over nd Roderich's circle of friends would move to the next topic; but their families were always a source of questions, pain, and grief for them as children. They wondered where they were exactly, what they were doing; how they lived, what else they knew about them, whether they missed them, thought about them; and at some point each of them accepted that the circle was their family.  
It was good to let someone speak so objectively and completely detached from any pain about what preoccupied them all as children: Who are my parents?  
Roderich's gaze wandered briefly to the faintly protruding tattoo on her forehead, and he swallowed. "Is that why you were tranquiled? Has Ser Alrik caught you?"  
"Oh no."  
"May I ask you what happened?"  
"I can't tell you yet." She smiled softly. "You can ask me again when you have passed your harrowing."  
Roderich's heartbeat sped up.  
Does that mean, he wanted to ask, that I will pass my harrowing soon? Or that you believe I will pass? Or that I cannot ask you in case I do not pass? Or will I no longer be interested?  
Roderich did his best to think quickly, looking for the question that was the least incriminating...  
"Why don't you go to bed a little early tonight, Roderich?" She stretched out her hands to him, as if she wanted to take him by the hand and lead him out of the library.  
He better not ask. "Thank you, Elizaveta. I'll probably do that." He smiled at her, and she nodded her head, elegantly and at the right angle.  
Roderich put his book back, left the warm room smelling of paper and animal skins, and walked away towards the main staircase.  
He actually felt better.

***

Conversation II

I had to split the first chapter. 

\---- 

Roderich wandered slowly and thoughtlessly down the stairs, not sure where he wanted to go. Maybe he was really going to sleep now... The cool stone wall, along which his fingers slid, calmed him down.  
Yes. Sleep. Just wait until the restlessness in him was over. That didn't always work, but it was still his number one strategy. Sleep on it first, then plan... then move on... and see...  
Sometimes he remembered what else he could do; for example, break with tradition and ask directly why he hadn’t passed the harrowing yet... just sneak out of the castle and be alone and free... hit Gilbert and kiss Elizaveta.

In his dreams he sucked in the cold air that came up to him from the corridor in the depths. But he always stood there, in this very spot, and went no further. Just like he did in real life.

Roderich's fingers bumped against thick, rough material and he pulled his hand back.

He had arrived at the hall.

Roderich's eyes searched the high room, for the point that seemed most attractive. The stairway to the sleeping quarters or else...  
He didn't really feel like it; but the single red light that came from behind the archway one floor below attracted him tonight after all.

Roderich walked through the hall, now empty except for two Templars, who had mumbled quietly, but were now watching him in silence. Roderich greeted them and walked on, past the tapestries that showed the coats of arms of those responsible for the life of this fortress. The sun symbol of the Chantry, the winged sword of the Templars, the simple circle design with the line interrupting it, symbolising the connection to the Void, for the circle of mages, and, finally, the ornament of the city of Kirkwall. It was the latter that the Roderich could do least with; they hardly ever saw anything of the city in their entire life from the time they joined the circle. But they were able to read up on its history, and the coat of arms was emblazoned on the wall. A golden sword, symbol of liberation by force, whose handle ended in two cool and symmetrically drawn vertical lines. They looked like tears.

Roderich overlooked the tapestry on the opposite side of the wall. He had never liked it, and Roderich was good at overlooking things he did not like. The Gallows, now hosting of the magical circle of the city of Kirkwall, had once been the symbol of deterrence and the place of execution for the disobedient slaves and any other bothersome subjects of the Tevinter Empire, and, fitting well in style and message, its symbol had an oppressive effect. It was probably intended to represent a powerful ruler in a wide cloak. For Roderich, the pictorial lines of the coat of arms merely showed a fat king, pressed into a box, with a posture as if he urgently needed to urinate. And wings, with which the good man certainly could not do anything. He found it ugly as hell.

Roderich hesitantly stepped through the archway, the great hall now at his back.

It was so dark in the corridor that the torches along the stone stairs were already burning. The smell of burning scented wood was stirred up by the cool air from the only window above.

There was no one there, and unreal silence. The sisters of the chantry were probably having dinner.

Roderich looked at the door of the chapel. Perhaps he would indeed find some peace... His fingers touched the heavy wood.

He turned away again.

"Hey, Serah."

The form of address, which Roderich now found childish, came out a little uncertain. Behind him.

Roderich drove around in horror.

Gilbert leaned against the cold stone wall with crossed arms. He stared straight at Roderich.

Roderich looked back silently. "Yes?", he finally asked when nothing came.

"Were you about to go into the chapel?"

"No."

Another pause, during which Gilbert made a decision and cleared his throat. "We haven't finished talking."

Roderich almost had to laugh. But only almost. All their conversations seemed to consist of never-ending debates. "Which conversation are you talking about?", he asked.

Gilbert ruffled his his hair absent-mindedly. "I have to show you something," he said abruptly.

Roderich pulled his eyebrows together. "Now? Like this?"

"Yes yes, come along!"

Roderich really felt like letting Gilbert go on alone, or asking right here and now what all this - everything today - was about. But when Gilbert was already standing on the landing, restless, he simply followed his classmate, albeit hesitantly, who was suddenly in a hurry to climb the stairs towards the dormitories.

He walked silently behind him until Gilbert looked over his shoulder and finally slowed down and waited for them to walk next to each other.

"What do you want?" Roderich decided that he would rather know now whether it was better to go to the dormitory and put the blanket over his head instead of whatever this was going to be.

Gilbert shrugged his shoulders. "Show you something."

Gilbert’s remark that noon had touched something that should not have been crossed; something had been destroyed today, and it hung in the air like a glass wall.Roderich felt uncomfortable and stayed silent. "You always insist that we as mages have no obligations," Gilberts began in conversation. His sandals made a scraping sound with every step on the stone.

"No moral obligations other than those that every conscient being has," Roderich corrected almost automatically, and thus joined in on the argument he was offered. Once again. He was suddenly wide awake.

"And to the fact that we do not need to be protected more than anyone else."

Actually, Roderich was simply supposed to tell Gilbert that he should come out with the language or leave, and he, Roderich, really didn't feel like seeing his face today. "Right." . Roderich noticed that they took a turn leading away from the dormitories, higher up to the herb and tea drying rooms, and then only under the roof... Gilbert just kept going. "And you insist that Andraste's words about magic were meant exactly as the circles interpret them today." Slowly the simultaneous ascent, talking and thinking made him pant. "Does our walk have anything to do with how much we need to be protected and locked up here?"

Gilbert didn't even react to the bite against the Circle. That worried Roderich a little. "I want to ask you something."

"Yes, please ask," Roderich growled, when once again nothing more came from his classmate; only the stairs became steeper and narrower, and finally Gilbert bent forward in an open window arch. "Hold on tight for now," he said, and even grinned very faintly. "Then there'll be answers."

As if he wanted to know anything except what this was all about... Roderich couldn't believe his eyes at first when Gilbert climbed into the window frame and then took a step outside. He stepped to the window and saw that they were apparently at the same level as the roof, and that here, embedded in the plastered wall of the building, a wrought-iron grille with darn big holes was waiting for him; nothing beside it, beneath it, a far too distant, hard flat roof, now shimmering reddish-white in the evening sun; and in front of him... "The tower?

"Yes! No more questions, come on!"

The mighty castle complex consisted of massive, advanced walls, the outer limit of their world, and a main building at least as massive, rising into the blue sky of the bay. The core of the fortress was the old tower, which rose up like a scrawny tree from a stone block at night .

Roderich had never been up there before. There was no reason to stay there at all, unless one wanted to catch sunstroke or be blown away by the wind and suffer either painful, paralysing fractures or even death.

"You want me to go over there?"

"Yeees, just come!"

Roderich growled to himself and looked doubtfully at the painfully hard roof far below him, hidden in the deepening shadows of the evening. He straightened, grabbed his robe, as ridiculous as it seemed to him, and carefully put one foot in front of the other on the bars. After a long, long, careful wiggle forward, he finally arrived at the redeeming opening - a second window. He propped himself against the mossy wall, glided into the room and took a deep breath. "Gilbert," he said softly, even though the name still tasted bitter "If this doesn't make sense soon, or at least ends, I'm going to leave and ask you never to come to me with such nonsense again. No matter what it's about or what..."

"All right! I understand!" Gilbert understood "to ask" very well as "to strangle you and curse while doing it" and looked quite worried. Then he pointed his chin straight ahead. "Just up there and out the door."

Roderich frowned, but followed him up a dark wooden staircase and through a door that Gilbert had to push through first. "There's no patrol here today," he murmured to himself.

What is here anyway?, Roderich wanted to ask, but at that moment he saw it for himself.

A battlement. At the wall of the tower.

He still realised that, and then Roderich had eyes for nothing else but the sight in front of them.

It was evening. The sun was already so far away that its ball had already disappeared and only its light was left over the coast off Kirkwall.

And yet Roderich saw it all.

Simply everything.

The peaks of the mountains that reached up into the sky here. The one mountain that was enthroned there in the shadow of itself and towered over her castle here on the cliffs like a personal guard.

The steeply sloping gorge cut into the rocks, which cut the sea water like a black ribbon through the rugged cliffs of the Wounded Coast. Roderich was amazed. "The city," he murmured. "There is Kirkwall." When you turned around, you saw it rise whitish, the upper town on the other side of the sea breakthrough. It shimmered faintly, probably lit by torches and candles; and the life there.

Roderich wished painfully as never before to be able to fly.

And he remembered again the cold, musty air from below.

"Do you see the Waking Sea?", Gilbert's voice tore him back to reality.

"...Yes." When he bent forward and twisted his neck, he could see the gate to the open sea. "Are the lights out there ships?", he asked, oblivious of himself, still busy looking at the mountains, the city, the sea far away...

"These are torches. There is fog on the sea. When it's daytime and you walk down the corridor to the back there, you can even see the statues in the water. They are very clearly visible."

Roderich was not so easily knocked down. As much as he had been away for a moment, as much as the white peak of the mountains captivated him; now he looked down; over steep cliffs into the black of the sea. "What were you going to ask me here?"

Gilbert needed a moment to answer. "What do you feel when you see this?"

Was that supposed to be a joke? "Why do you want to know?"

Gilbert puffed in frustration. "Because... it's nothing special! Just answer!"

"Longing", Roderich said immediately and waited.

"That's it," murmured Gilbert, and he sounded honestly amazed. "Not me."

"What?"

Gilbert also leaned against the balustrade, his gaze fixedly directed downwards. "We can't fly, I know that. So I'm staying here. I don’t feel longing."

And even if he didn't want to, Roderich's mouth closed in a small, amused smile. Even if it was a little joyless. "Is that your best argument? You show me a different - this - And you tell me that you are still standing securely, even if you can only see where you will never be? Unlike me?"

Gilbert made a sound that could not be defined. "Do you want to go up there? Up the mountain?"

Roderich laid his head back and shuddered with the utmost respect. "Up there? No. There must be reasons why no one goes up there. They say that so far up in the sky there is no air anymore..."

"Then why do you want to go down there?" Gilbert's eyes shone in the twilight as he pointed at the city. "Explain it to me."

The faint lights of Kirkwall, nestled against the coast as they knew from drawings and paintings of their childhood, waved.

"This is not a mountain. It's a city."

"It's dangerous there too."

"That's true," said Roderich, and Gilbert noticed the calm, affirmative tone in his voice very well, and looked surprised. "But..." He pondered, faltered, and then said almost defiantly: "That is what it is all about. I could live down there if I were a normal person! I would be there..."

Gilbert laughed at him. "I see. You could be there too if you weren't a mage, and that's why it doesn't suit you here, Serah?"

"I would have a family," Roderich said violently. "A life, you know?"

Gilbert shook his head. "Don't you live here? Don’t you have a family you are stuck with forever?"

Roderich pressed his lips together. "I just know what it can be like," he said. "Maybe you don’t, Gilbert."

"How old were you when you joined the Circle?"

Roderich, suddenly wishing himself far down into his bed, still unable to free himself from the sight of the vastness beneath them, moved only a little bit away from Gilbert. "Six years or so. "And eight when I crossed the north of Ferelden and vomited into the Waking Sea."

"Oh" Gilbert drew the air in. "Right. You came as a refugee from Ferelden." In his voice lay honest respect, and Roderich listened up.

A mage here was a mage first of all, and nothing else. At least for the Templars. Nevertheless: a whole group of new people who appeared, with a strange dialect and strange tastes, had not been welcomed by everyone at that time.

"Tell me."

"What?"

"You crossed the whole of northern Ferelden?"

"Yes. I came from Lothering“

"Where's that?

"In the south."

"So it's cold and rainy and smells like dog?"

"Probably."

Pause. "Can you talk more?"

"What do you care about places you'll never visit?"

"Have you ever been to the Void?" Gilbert asked, out of context.

"Never consciously." Roderich faltered at first. Going into the Void... that could only be done through complicated or powerful and hard to control magic. He knew that. And that was as far as they had gotten in class...

Gilbert was silent again, frowning.

Roderich wanted to stay here and wait for the sinking light on the horizon to take his sight; and he decided that this conversation was not the worst they had had so far. "Why," he said abruptly, returning to the one subject they would probably never agree on "should the Maker have given us the connection to the Void if it is a danger to us? And if He really wanted us to live differently from everyone else - why did He want that?"

"He certainly wanted to give us a special task," said Gilbert seriously. He almost looked sad. "But the Maker has already left us."

"Then we can't say we know what His will is!"

"Roderich... do you not believe his prophetess?"

Roderick was uneasily. "I believe that some words and the Song of Light are put into practice as befits the Templars. Snd not as responsible servants of the Chantry should." He waited, tense, and was a little afraid of a new thunderstorm on the part of Gilbert.

"The Templars and the sisters of the Chantry also serve Andraste only. They cannot ask the Maker." Gilbert closed his eyes and shook his head. "Why did He leave us alone anyway..."

"This means that He does not destroy this world if we behave wrongly, but leaves and lets us decide for ourselves," Roderich replied cautiously. "Is that not good?"

Gilbert's gaze looked for Roderich's, and he was serious, and sad and introspective as Roderich had never seen his classmate before. "He is leaving us," he said. "Leaves us only our own faults in the form of corruption, and then He leaves us. Is that not much worse?"

Roderich couldn't help but look straight ahead, challenging himself. "Gilbert, can I just tell you what I think, or do I have to take another stab at letting myself be tranquiled?"

Gilbert's eyes seemed to glow in the fading light. "Speak..."

"Why?"

"What why?"

"Why is it worse for a god to abandon his world than to destroy it?"

"Because... because we no longer know what it is good for." Gilbert's gaze wandered off into the distance. "Do you know what the Void is for? What we are for? And why?"

"No. And we'll never get the answer. But that also means that we, on our own, have to take care of ourselves, ! We doesn’t it! We have a new task."

"The Void", Gilbert said slowly, "is full of mystery. Sometimes I thought it was hiding the secrets of our world. And that we must find them. That we, as mages, must figure out how to reach the black city. Then again, maybe it threatens our world. Maybe it destroyed. Perhaps the remains of our past arrogance are hidden there, and will one day destroy us? Or is the Void just a reflection of us? Does it hold the world together? I do not know. But I don't like being there."

Roderich watched him. "Do you dream much?"

"Yes."

Roderich could see Gilbert's hands brushing restlessly across the stone balustrade, and he thought. "Do you know so little of the Song of Light?" he finally asked softly. "The Black City was once white. It is the forsaken city of the Maker."

Gilbert smiled. "And no matter how far you go, you'll never reach it. I guess we read the same book."

"Maybe He'll rebuild it."

"His city is lost."

"We don't know that. Except that it's abandoned. It's not the same thing“

"Then we don't know what's happening to us. We can’t know."

"I thought I could be blamed for not having enough faith in the Maker." Gilbert looked up in amazement. "But you ask too many questions, too, Gilbert."

And Gilbert laughed, his tinny laugh coming at the most inopportune moments. "There's not much more we can do."

Roderich did not contradict him, and so the silence between them was almost peaceful.

"I can only talk to you about such things."

Roderich stared at him in bewilderment. "What have I done to deserve this?"

"Oh, shut up..."

"Seriously, what do you want to tell me?"

"That you should get up your arse up and get the harrowing over with, so I can destroy your arguments."

"What--"

"You haven't passed yet, have you?"

"No," Roderich growled, "and I'm surprised you passed already."

Gilbert giggled. "I like that."

"I am surprised YOU already have."

Gilbert pushed himself off the parapet, and now they noticed how dark it was.

Night had fallen over Kirkwall Bay.

"I feel the same as you," Roderich said slowly. "With another place."

"Where...? What?"

Roderich shook his head. "I stand before it, but I know... if I keep walking, the dreams are over and reality begins. I am no longer protected. So I'm not leaving." He smiled joylessly. "I understand you more than you might think possible."

"You...?"

"Yes?" Roderich already regretted saying anything.

"What do you mean, you have a place?"

"It's not important. I'm just saying - you have a place that shows you the world beyond yours, but you will not move towards it. Because you're stubborn."

"Faithful", Gilbert interrupted Roderich, somewhat miffed, and Roderich waved it away. "And I have a place which means freedom for me. And I would not stay. I would leave. But I'm not doing it because I know what can happen."

"I see." Gilbert had crossed his arms, still not thrilled at being dismissed as stubborn so easily. "You live dangerously, Roderich."

Roderich did not let someone who did not have his tongue in check for a second of his life tell him that. "You live excessively."

"What does that mean?"

"It's almost curfew.

"Don't be evasive, Serah“.

"Shut up, slave“

Gilbert bumped into him hard. "I'm calling you Serah, not Magister, you unbelievable lame duck when it comes to history!"

Roderich punched him hard against the shoulder. "How do we get back?"

"What...? Oh, I see. Fire, I guess.“

"Oh, no!"

"Can't you handle fire?"

Roderich just growled and silently concentrated on the energy in his veins. The night had finally come.

Soon it was tingling warmly over the palm of his hand and the flames that formed glided calmly over his hand.

Gilbert behind him clicked his tongue pejoratively. "Oh, yes, the spirit mages."

Roderich cast a wry glance at the much brighter and more restlessly burning fireball in Gilbert's hand. "That looks explosive."

"It's just your imagination."

"You go first."

"Oh, you're not getting anywhere without me, are you?"

"I want you to fall first.“

***

The moment the familiar space around him took shape, Roderich knew he was dreaming.

The ceiling was high above him, much higher than the old study rooms in which they were taught were really, and disappeared into inscrutable nothingness.

As in dreams, he didn't ask what he was doing and why instead of a row of windows, metre-high columns to his right disappeared into the grey of the dream; he simply walked forward and noticed that two figures at the other end of the room were talking to each other without noticing him in any way. 

And as their voices floated over to him, he recognised his two schoolmates.

"I can't believe it! That is simply not true!"

Many a scholar had written long books about dreams. Sometimes the Void was wide and clear, they said, and sometimes it was thick and oppressive like the mist on the river banks of the southern swamps.

Roderich's dreams were always dense, focused, and that was exactly how Alfred's voice sounded. Roderich caught up with the two figures in their robes, and he dreamt of standing next to a column and listening to the two of them, an uninvolved viewer ...

"This is all I could find. It must work. It sounds like it will work. Can you help me, Alfred?"

"Are you insane! This counts as blood magic!"

"Keep your voice down..."

"No one can hear us here!"

"Who knows. Alfred..."

"Oh, right. I can only say one thing about that: If you ever do that, I will personally beat you so badly that you won't get up again! You can't..."

The dream Ivan clenched both hands into fists. "I don't want to die. Is that so hard to understand?"

Alfred swallowed. He raised one hand hesitantly, slowly, not quite touching Ivan. "That - who says you're going to die!"

Ivan gnashed his teeth. "I see them every night," he said softly. "Since my harrowing. I can't get rid of her either..."

Alfred made an uncomprehending face, then threw his hands in the air. "You mean your fear demons! Ignore them and kick their asses, what's the big deal!"

"My heart has stopped twice last week. In just one week. Sometimes I can barely get up in the morning. What do I have left?"

Alfred roared something; it was a hoarse, inarticulate scream, desperate and out of his soul; Roderich thought when he got up that he must have hit his head on the wall where his bed was standing right at that moment. "Go to the sisters!"

"They can do nothing but give me drinks..."

"That helps! I know that their mixtures help! Ivan, do you want to use your body to repair your health? How can you do that? How does that even work? You have to cut open your arms and make a big mess! I'm going to be sick! You're crazy just thinking about it!"

"Are you thinking about helping me?" Ivan - and that was why this dream was so fucked up - smiled.

Alfred grabbed Ivan by the belt of his robe and shook him. "No way, you lunatic!"

Ivan turned away, turned one shoulder towards Alfred. "I told you before. Only small experiments. Whether I can control my own blood... That's all I want to do."

"Maker, don't start that again! Blood magic was learned from demons by the first to master it! There can be nothing good about that! Ivan, please..."

Ivan half-heartedly broke free and said quietly and angrily: "I trust you and you alone, Alfred. I shouldn’t have said anything..."

"Maker!" Alfred threw his hands in the air, and his voice echoed distortedly through Roderich's head as it increased in volume. "If it would help, I would give you some of my blood. Do not dare to do any nonsense on your own! I would do anything for you. I'll wake you up each time. Every morning. I'll fight them with you. No matter how often you dream. W- just wake up and tell me... Don't you understand that, everything, everything to keep you alive, but what YOU are planning on doing is not possible!"

Ivan bit his lips and his eyes flitted nervously away from Alfred, across the room...

Roderich automatically retreated into the shady edges of this scene...

Then it was already over.

When he woke up, Roderich wondered what would have happened if the two of them had seen him.

He shook his head.As if any of them were even jokingly considering becoming a maleficar.As if Alfred would ever say ‘please’ in real life.

Roderich smiled, and then he seriously wondered if the anxiety about his last exam was so deep that he was already dreaming up such nonsense.

At breakfast he had already forgotten the dream and his little bump on the head.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this Hetalia/Dragon Age crossover for a friend who didn't know Dragon Age but was curious about it, hence the details on DA lore and basically none of that on Hetalia. I think that's fine, since we got Hetalia characters who are 100% immersed the Dragon Age universe. I hope you, whoever managed to read the first chapter until the very end, had as much fun as I had when I first wrote this.  
> I got all the chapters except the last one done, and translation will take some time. If anyone wants to point out weird grammatical structures or anything else that was off linguistically, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO SO.  
> See you around, fellow dwellers. IS there anyone who, like me, has both Hetalia and Dragon Age be the two fandoms they followed with absolute passion?


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